Debby Yoder, Contributor

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Unequal Access to Parks and Parking Lots

Posted By Maria Pugliesi,
ATLANTA GA – Just last week Atlanta's park system was ranked 31st out of 50 of those in the country’s largest cities.That’s not exactly a stellar performance and it’s not surprising seeing as only 5.6 percent of the city’s land houses parks. But there is something else
not captured it this news item that city officials should be doing something
about: the distribution of parks and green space is unequal: with the most
wealthy, more white parts of the city having more parks and the less wealthy,
more Black parts of the city having more parking lots.

People living in Midtown and
points farther north can easily walk to nearby green spaces. Piedmont
Park, for example, is one of the biggest parks in Atlanta, and crowds of people from all walks of life fill its immense grass fields on sunny
Sunday afternoons. When it’s time to go home, people can cross the street and
walk back under the shade of beautiful large trees. There are also jogging and
bicycle paths surrounded by large lawns to connect residential neighborhoods
like those in Freedom Park.

Closer to downtown, the
southside of Atlanta presents a starkly different scenario. Mostly, African
American working class people live immediately South of Georgia State University, and they
do not have ready access to equally prosperous vegetation, a large park or
jogging and biking trails. There are small
parks near public elementary schools; however they are certainly not of a
comparable magnitude to those to the north.

By simply looking at a map of
the city, it would make sense to assume that perhaps there is not enough space
to create green recreational area near downtown. But then again, one has to wonder why there
are so many empty parking lots. In Midtown you can easily happen upon a
beautiful park but it’s hard to find parking. On the southside you can easily
happen upon a parking lot but it’s hard to find a park. I’d prefer a park to a parking lot.

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